Boundary Waters Fire Now At 100K Acres, 0% Contained As Winds Pick Up After 2-Day Lull - WSJ

[hatrack]

ISABELLA, Minn.—The largest forest fire in 80 years in the remote wilderness of northern Minnesota faces a crucial turning point this weekend after warm dry air swept in Friday.

"This thing has just been taking a nap the last two days with the weather we've had, and today it's going to wake up," Doug Anderson, spokesman for the fire command center, said Friday. The question, he added, is "what kind of mood it's going to be in when it does wake up."

The fire has spread across an area nearly seven times the size of Manhattan and is considered 0% contained, meaning officials still believe flames could jump the boundaries cleared thus far between the fire and unburned brush. Officials worried southern winds would push the flames past the northern perimeter, about a dozen miles from the Canadian border, but the fire's movement there was unclear by late Friday. On the southern perimeter, crews held the fire.

Inside the fire's boundaries, green trees stand feet from stretches of black soot where the fire burned into the soil. Officials call the burning pattern a "mosaic" that signals there is plenty of "unburned fuel" for the fire to catch if the winds change, said Jim Grant, branch director for one half of the fire zone. "This is not over at all."

EDIT

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904491704576575090617224126.html?mod=ITP_pageone_1

[Viking12]

1. Rain predicted for today. Up to an inch w/ calmer winds

Hopefully, they'll get a handle on edges before it blows into "civilization". The wilderness will be fine.

http://www.weather.com/weather/today/Isabella+MN+55607?par=igoogle&site=www.google.com&promo=currrentconditions&cm_ven=igoogle&cm_cat=www.google.com&cm_pla=forecastpage&cm_ite=CityPage

[Brickbat]

2. We definitely needed that fire. Fortunately, in a wilderness area, not a lot of people or

structures are in harm's way, and everyone in the wilderness has been evacuated. So far, so good.

[hatrack]

3. Wasn't there a really gigantic blowdown to the NW of Superior a few years back?

Huge, as in tens of thousands of acres of dead trees? Yeesh, lots of fuel, IIRC.

[Angry Dragon]

4. You remember correctly

[Brickbat]

6. Back in 1999 -- almost a half-million acres.

http://www.bwcawiki.org/wiki/Fourth_of_July_Blowdown

This fire is not in the blowdown area, though.

[hatrack]

8. Lucky, that - though another year of crispy, crackly drying isn't going to help . . .

nt

[Brickbat]

9. Some of it has burned, in other years, IIRC.

[Peregrine Took]

5. Bet it wasn't so great for all the animals that live up there. n/t

[Brickbat]

7. Some outrace it, some don't.

:shrug:

[Botany]

10. It looks like the BWCA is going to get soaked today but ...

.... the fire is good for moose, sharp tailed grouse, and red pines. And next year there will be millions of wildflowers.